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U.S. Muslims called to Patriot Act hearing
Washington, DC, Jun. 9 (UPI) -- A Muslim civil rights group Thursday encouraged American Muslims to attend a congressional hearing on the impact of the Patriot Act on their community.
The House Judiciary Committee will hear Friday from an immigration lawyer, a pollster and Amnesty International on the act, which has resulted in the detention of thousands of people in the United States -- few of whom whose names have been released.
Sixteen provisions of the act -- passed swiftly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- are slated to expire at the end of this year and Congress is considering some modifications that would expand the power of law enforcement.
On Wednesday, in a closed session the Senate Intelligence Committee approved a revision that would permit the FBI to seize personal records without first getting a court order.
"These administrative subpoenas are an end-run around long-standing due process procedures and threaten every American's right to privacy," said Council on American-Islamic Relations Governmental Affairs Director Corey Saylor in a press statement Thursday.
President George W. Bush Thursday praised the Patriot Act, crediting the expanded powers it gives law enforcement with the arrest of more than 400 people suspected of being involved with terrorism. About half were convicted - although on what charges is unclear.
The Government Accountability Office reported in 2003 that about half the 288 terrorism-related convictions to that point were found by investigators to have been improperly classified.
GOP chairman walks out during Patriot Act hearing
Complains about detainee debate
By Jim Abrams, Associated Press | June 11, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The Republican chairman walked off with the gavel, leaving Democrats shouting into turned-off microphones at a raucous hearing yesterday.
The House Judiciary Committee hearing, with the two sides accusing each other of being irresponsible and undemocratic, came as President Bush was urging Congress to renew sections of the post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism law set to expire in September.
Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the panel, abruptly gaveled the meeting to an end and walked out, followed by other Republicans. Sensenbrenner declared that much of the testimony, which veered into debate about the detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was irrelevant.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, protested, raising his voice as his microphone went off, came back on, and went off again.
''We are not besmirching the honor of the United States, we are trying to uphold it," he said.
Democrats asked for the hearing, the 11th the committee has held on the act since April, saying past hearings had been too slanted toward witnesses who supported the law. The four witnesses were from groups, including Amnesty International USA and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, that have questioned the constitutionality of some aspects of the act, which allows law enforcement greater authority to investigate suspected terrorists.
Nadler said Sensenbrenner, one of the authors of the Patriot Act, was ''rather rude, cutting everybody off in mid-sentence with an attitude of total hostility."
Tempers flared when Representative Michael Pence, Republican of Indiana, accused Amnesty International of endangering the lives of Americans in uniform by referring to the prison at Guantanamo Bay as a ''gulag." Sensenbrenner didn't allow the Amnesty representative, Chip Pitts, to respond until Nadler raised a ''point of decency."
Sensenbrenner's spokesman, Jeff Lungren, said the hearing had lasted two hours and ''the chairman was very accommodating, giving members extra time."
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, speaking immediately after Sensenbrenner left, voiced dismay about the proceedings. ''I'm troubled about what kind of lesson this gives" to the rest of the world, he told the Democrats remaining in the room.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, said in a statement that the hearing was an example of Republican abuse of power and that she would ask House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, to order an apology from Sensenbrenner.
